Presidential Historians Survey: Abraham Lincoln Best; Obama 12th Best

Shilpika Srivastava

In C-SPAN’s latest survey of Presidential Leadership, Abraham Lincoln retained the top spot as the United States of America’s most esteemed leader.

The survey, which released in the third week of February 2017, polled 91 presidential historians.

Barack Obama ranked 12th in the list and it was also the first time that he was eligible for the Presidential Historians Survey. In the "Pursued Equal Justice for All" category, he ranked 3rd, and in "Relations with Congress" category, he ranked 39th.

The survey ranked the former leaders on 10 “attributes of leadership.” These ranged from the moral categories of “crisis leadership,” “moral authority,” “pursued equal justice for all,” to the more technical ones of “economic management,” “administrative skills,” “performance within context of times,” and “setting an agenda,” and included relations with the public, Congress, and other governments.

Top 10 names in the Presidential Historians Survey

Rank

Name

Overall Scores

1

Abraham Lincoln

906

2

George Washington

867

3

Franklin D. Roosevelt

854

4

Theodore Roosevelt

807

5

Dwight D. Eisenhower

744

6

Harry S. Truman

737

7

Thomas Jefferson

727

8

John F. Kennedy

722

9

Ronald Reagan

691

10

Lyndon Baines Johnson

686

The survey conducted in the year 2017 had placed Abraham Lincoln on the first spot, George Washington on the second, and Franklin D. Roosevelt on the third place.

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